The 13 Most Dangerous Car Interiors in History

A lot of what we take for granted in the modern automobile has come along only after a great deal of trial and error—and, perhaps, neglect. Take, for instance, the humble headrest. While a headrest design was patented in 1923, the National Highway Transportation Association only passed a law that all passenger cars should have headrests in 1969—after hundreds of thousands of spine injuries as the result of whiplash. The safety belt was first put to use in horse-drawn carriages in the 1850s, but wouldn't be standard-issue in cars until the early 1960s. Sadly, many of the most basic innovations that are part of every automobile interior today came about this way. Grim, but true. These are the most dangerous car interiors—and a few that were unique for ushering in safety before it was fashionable.

1905 Darracq 200HP

1905 Darracq 200HP

Talk about rudimentary safety: The 1905 Darracq 200HP set speed records in Europe but had zero bodywork, just open chairs on a naked chassis. But, in a bit of clever ingenuity, Darracq cleverly offset the buckets so that the passenger sat slightly behind the driver. The advantage? In a curve, when the driver had the wheel to hold on to, the passenger could grab the driver's shoulders to keep from being flung from the vehicle.

1908 Ford Model T

1908 Ford Model T

"Safety glass" was actually invented by accident: In 1903, a Parisian scientist who had melted a liquid plastic into a glass beaker discovered that laminated glass would break but rarely fly apart. Unfortunately, automakers of the day didn't care about his invention, and so the Model T—and every other car of its day—featured a dead flat and seriously deadly windscreen that would cut apart passengers in the unfortunate event of a serious accident. The first widespread use of laminated glass came in the form of gas-mask goggles during World War I. By the late 1930s, Ford had adopted laminated glass in all of its models, calling it "Indestructo Glass." It was made by the aptly named British Indestructo Glass Co.